The Garden Loft for Eggstraordinary Ladies

[aart]

Haha, no, that's me. Right in the middle it's divided in two--the two doors are open and touching handle-to-handle, but they're lined up exactly behind the middle pole so you can't see. I should have taken the picture from an angle.

Is that separation wall solid wood or mesh?
I divide my coop with a temporary wall to brood, introduce, and integrate new chicks.
Works a charm!

 

[Caity]

Is that separation wall solid wood or mesh?
I divide my coop with a temporary wall to brood, introduce, and integrate new chicks.
Works a charm!

Awesome idea! Ours is wood because we hope to also use the space to store stuff and to use as a winter coop during the few weeks when it gets super-cold here. I love the wall with the small door for in the run though. I haven't put together our run-divider yet, but that's a great idea.

 

[aart]

Ours is wood because we hope to also use the space to store stuff and to use as a winter coop during the few weeks when it gets super-cold here.

Mesh wall wouldn't preclude that use....your climate doesn't really need a 'winter coop'.
Curious as to your thinking in that.
My separator wall is temporary so I can give them more space in winter,
as they are often cooped up for days on end during lake effect snow storms.

 

[Caity]

We had one hen get a little bit of frostbite on her comb one night in our old coop, and this coop is basically the same as our old one, just twice as wide (so when we divide it in half, it's basically the same inside as our old one). After she was frostbitten we took to wrapping a water heater blanket on the outside when we had those few super-cold/wet nights. We never had any problems after that, but it wasn't the classiest looking solution . So for this coop I wanted the winter side to be more weather-tight, so there's no windows or external nesting boxes where drafts could sneak in, and I insulated the exterior walls. If we didn't have a plywood wall between the two halves, the other changes I made wouldn't be much help. Even on the coldest days they basically never stay inside, but that's because cold days here are almost never below 20. All that being said, I have plenty of hardware cloth left over, so maybe I should swap it out for a mesh wall while we're integrating. It couldn't hurt!

 

[aart]

Frostbite is caused by humidity and cold temps.

Tempting as it is to 'tighten up the coop',
more ventilation is often the cure,
so that humidity can escape the coop.

Won't totally eliminate the risk of frostbite,
but it also releases the ammonia laden air that can cause respiratory issues,
which IMO is a greater risk to overall health and than a little frost bite on the combs.
I see more frostbite from chickens noshing on the snow banks,
than on the roost during cold spells(and here that means -F's).

 

[Caity]

For sure. The top of my old coop (and this one) is entirely open for about 6 inches before the roof starts so I don't think it was a ventilation issue. We haven't had any problems since we started wrapping the outside of our old coop, so that's why I'm thinking it might have been colder due to cross-drafts.

 

[aart]

For sure. The top of my old coop (and this one) is entirely open for about 6 inches before the roof starts so I don't think it was a ventilation issue. We haven't had any problems since we started wrapping the outside of our old coop, so that's why I'm thinking it might have been colder due to cross-drafts.

They could have been hit directly with a strong draft.
Blocking drafts when roost is closer to ceiling/roof can be important.
I put a big ole piece of cardboard on my mesh coop 'ceiling' to block drafts from eave that is probably only about 2 feet from chicken heads.

 

[csnail]

Love your coop!

 

[Caity]

UPDATE 3/2018:

Hi all,

Some of you asked about the double-roosts and the weather-proofing, so I thought I'd give an update now that we've had the coop for about 6 months and through the winter. So far the coop is working out GREAT.

We had a record-breaking cold winter here in North Carolina, so I got a good opportunity to test out my weather-proofing. We had a week of single digits and ton of snow (I literally cannot remember a time it's been colder for longer here) and I moved all 8 chickens (chicks and old hens, now merged) into the "winter side" and we had zero issues. After comments received here (thanks everyone!) I had taken out one of the double roosts on the "summer" side where they live most of the time, but out of laziness left both up in the winter side. Good news--there weren't any problems with feather pulling and no poop on the walls, nor any problems for the hens (even the old girls) getting on the roosts. I'm still glad I took it out of the "summer" side, just to be safe, but don't plan on fixing the "Winter" side as they're not in there often. All 8 are content in half the coop, so I haven't taken out the central wall to enlarge the coop and am back to using it for storage.

One difference between this coop and the last one that has made a big difference is painting the inside of the coop white. In our old coop, which was wood-stained, the chickens never wanted to go in the coop, but preferred to sleep on the roost in the run. It's not a problem as the whole coop is predator-roof, but we keep sweet PDZ in the coop, which cleans up better than sand. Now the chickens put themselves to bed in the coop, and we're thinking it's because it is so much brighter in there.

 

[LeggyLeghorn]

wow! that is a beautiful coop!